Desmond: Jungle life brings out the worst

Take eight celebrities and drop them into the Australian rainforest, and what have you got? At first sight they look like a family of chimps and at any moment you expect to see chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall in the undergrowth, notebook in hand, binoculars at the ready. A second glance, however, reveals that these are not wild creatures but tame ones which have been returned to the wild, into the kind of habitat that is natural for their species, but which they have long-since forgotten.

There is (for real) an island in Africa where chimps that have been rescued from circuses, pet-shops, zoos and other unsuitable homes have been returned to the wild. They have all endured a stressful past and animal experts have decided to give them back their jungle freedom. In theory, their rainforest homecoming should be greeted with great pleasure, but it is not that simple. They carry with them all the mental baggage of their past lives, and having been thrown together as strangers, their relationships have not developed slowly, over the years. The result is a great deal of chaos and confusion.

Which brings us back to the celebs in the Australian forest. They are not wild humans, nor are they a family group. They are urban strangers who have brought a great deal of conflicting mental baggage with them to their little jungle clearing.

Instead of reacting with wonder to the rich environment in which they find themselves, they sit around, making jokes, screaming obscenities, settling arguments, displaying egos and suffering tantrums. Every one of them has ignored the fascinating local flora and fauna, except to regard it with disgust. They have been concerned only with themselves and their relationships with one another.

The result, in this new experiment in reality TV, has been explosive and highly revealing. Whether the contestants realise it or not, we have gained a more accurate picture of their true personalities in a few days than we would have done from watching them on a hundred chat shows, or giving a thousand interviews.

All their strengths and weaknesses have been stripped bare before our eyes. In their many moments of crisis they genuinely seem to forget that they are being watched by cameras. Some of their actions have been so irritating, crass, childish or petulant that they cannot possibly be doing them for effect.

They do not all approach their challenge in the same way. Christine Hamilton (who admits she is enjoying the break from her husband) gets through it by keeping busy, busy, busy. She takes on the role of Mother Courage and knows how to clean the latrine pit, keep the fire burning and generally encourage the troops. Since they are not her troops, she inevitably gets up their noses in the process.

Darren Day, on the other hand, has revealed himself to be dreadfully selfobsessed and annoying.

Tony Blackburn decides instead stoically to wait it out and sits around as though he is fogged in at Gatwick. This strategy allows him to emerge as a delightful, amiable man, if (as the others say of him) a bit dull.

Ex-boxer Nigel Benn appeared to be consumed with anger, and let us see the chip on his shoulder grow as the days passed. A born-again Christian, he is clearly suffering an inner turmoil over the idea that the meek shall inherit the earth. The biggest challenge was for Israeli magician Uri GeIler. Since his gimmick is his insistence that he performs his tricks with genuine psychic powers, he could not let this facade slip. As a result, his performance was stubbornly and persistently professional. Viewers saw nothing whatever of the true Uri Geller and so kicked him out the moment they had the chance.

The opposite is true of socialite Tara Palmer-Tomkinson. She has no mask. Although she keeps her clothes on, in every other way she is stripped naked, day after day. She is, by turns, charming, irritating, sexy, infuriating, vulnerable, self-obsessed, funny, plucky, and, above all, childlike.

How relieved they will all be to get back to the lives they know. It is curiously fitting that, in the week when this will happen for them, one by one, it is also happening for another, very different celebrity. Willy the Killer Whale, so lovingly returned to the ocean, has got close again to the human environment he knew so well. He has found his way into a Norwegian fjord where he is happily giving rides to children and being fed by friendly fishermen.